Paper vs digital fuel records on the farm

Paper, a spreadsheet and an app can all hold a good farm fuel record. What decides the result is not the tool but whether the entry is made at the moment the diesel moves, by the person who moved it, with the detail you will need later. Paper is fine on a small farm with one tank and one or two people filling. Once there are several vehicles, several people or SARS record-keeping to meet, the weaknesses of paper and spreadsheets start to cost you.

What does a farm fuel record actually need to do?

Whatever you use, it has to answer these questions months later:

• How many litres went into each tank, from which supplier, on which invoice?
• Which vehicle or machine took how many litres, on which day, doing what?
• Who refueled which vehicle?
• What should be in each tank now, and what does the dipstick say?
• Can I produce any month for my accountant or for SARS?

SARS's Note 6 to Part 3 of Schedule 6 expects a monthly storage logbook for each tank and a monthly usage logbook, backed by the original invoices, delivery notes and the source documents the logbooks were completed from. The SARS diesel refund page says records must be kept for five years. A system is only as good as its ability to give you those answers. For the detail of what to write, see how to keep a farm diesel logbook.

What goes wrong with paper logbooks?

Paper has real strengths. It costs almost nothing, works with no signal, no battery and no training, and a clipboard on the tractor is hard to forget. For a farm with one tank and a tidy foreman, it can be perfectly adequate.

The problems appear as the operation grows:

• Lost slips and damaged books. A book left on the dashboard in January heat or a wet bakkie floor is gone, and with it the record.
• Illegible entries. Odometer and litre figures written in a hurry get misread, and "1 80" might be 180 or 130.
• Late capture. If the book sits in the office and entries are made on Friday from memory, they are estimates.
• No reconciliation. Adding up a month of handwritten lines for every tank and vehicle is slow, so it often does not get done, and a theft or leak is not noticed.
• One copy. Fire, theft of the book or a vehicle sold with the book still in it can erase years.
• Slow to retrieve. Finding one vehicle across five years of books for an accountant takes an afternoon.

What goes wrong with spreadsheets?

A spreadsheet is the natural next step. It adds the totals and can be filtered by vehicle. It is also cheap and most accountants can open it.

The weak point is how the data gets in. Someone has to type it up from slips or from a book, so:

• entries are made in batches, often by someone who was not at the pump
• slips still get lost before they are typed
• formulas break when a row is inserted or a column is changed
• two people editing different copies leaves you with two versions
• there is no record of who changed a number, or when

Spreadsheets are good for analysis and poor as the first place a litre is written down.

What goes wrong with apps?

Apps have their own failure modes, and it is fair to name them:

• an app that needs mobile data will not work on the lands, in the shed or on the far side of the farm
• if the phone is the only record, a broken phone can lose entries
• if it is hard to use, people will go back to the slip in their pocket
• data you cannot export is data you do not really own
• some apps are built for city fleets and do not know about tanks, bowsers or farming activities

What should I look for in a digital fuel system?

Check these before you commit:

1. Offline capture. It must record the entry with no signal and send it later without anyone re-typing it.
2. Per-vehicle and per-tank records. Each refuel is tied to a vehicle or machine, and each delivery and measurement to a tank.
3. Activity on every entry. The reason for the fuel, not just the litres. This is what separates qualifying from non-qualifying use.
4. A record of changes. If an entry is edited, you can see that it was and by whom.
5. Reconciliation. It compares what should be in a tank with what was measured, and points out gaps.
6. Exports. Your accountant and SARS need files, not screenshots. Check which formats it produces.
7. Simple enough for the person at the pump. Test it with your least technical employee, not with yourself.
8. Your data stays yours. Find out what happens to your records if you stop paying.

Where does AgriTrekker fit?

AgriTrekker is a fuel management system with an offline-capable mobile app and a web app. The mobile app lets drivers and pump attendants log refuels from the field or depot without signal, and syncs when a connection returns. Every entry builds a dated logbook for each vehicle. In the web app you can set up tanks, vehicles, employees, activities and fuel suppliers, adjust which activities are marked tax-deductible, follow a live feed of fuel logs with discrepancies highlighted, and keep a history of edits to logs. The diesel logbooks can be exported in the SARS template format in Excel. Plans are priced by the number of vehicles, and there is a free trial.

It is not the only way to do this properly, and a careful paper system beats a badly used app. But if lost slips, late entries and slow month-end totals are your problem, that is the sort of problem it was built for. If you also need repairs and servicing recorded, there is a separate maintenance and repairs product; see tractor preventive maintenance schedules.

How do I switch from paper to digital without losing my history?

You do not need to type in years of old books. A sensible switch looks like this:

1. Pick a clean start date, ideally the first day of a month, so each month is entirely paper or entirely digital.
2. Dip every tank and note every vehicle's odometer or hour meter on that day and enter them as the opening figures.
3. Keep the old books, invoices and slips. SARS expects the underlying records to be kept for five years, so file them in a dry, labelled box (or scan them) rather than throwing them away.
4. Run both systems side by side for the first month. Compare the totals at month-end. Any difference tells you where the habit is not yet right.
5. Train the people at the pump first, not the office. A well-known term is GIGO: "garbage in, garbage out". If the logs are made incorrectly and wrong data is entered, the statistics will be wrong and so will the SARS export. Luckily, AgriTrekker allows you to edit those logs if any mistakes were made.
6. Export a month early on and give it to your accountant, to check that it is what they need.

Frequently asked questions

Is a paper diesel logbook still acceptable for SARS?

SARS's rules require monthly storage and usage logbooks and supporting documents, and describe what they must contain. The notice we read does not specify whether the logbook is on paper or on screen, but you should check the current templates and requirements on the SARS website, or ask your tax practitioner.

What is the best way to keep farm fuel records?

The best way is the one the people filling the tanks will use every time. For one tank and a few vehicles, a book kept at the tank can work. For more vehicles, several workers or a lot of fields, an app that works offline and records the activity for each entry is easier to keep complete.

Can I use Excel instead of a fuel app?

Yes, and many farms do. It works best for totals and analysis. The weak point is the capture: the slips still have to be typed in by someone, usually later, and there is no automatic record of who changed what.

Do fuel apps work without signal on the farm?

Some do and some do not. Ask whether entries can be captured with no signal and sent automatically later. AgriTrekker's mobile app is built to work offline and sync when the phone is back in range.

How do I move my old diesel records into a new system?

Start with opening figures on a fixed date, keep the paper records for the retention period and run both for a month. You normally do not need to re-enter old history.

This article is general information, last checked on 11 October 2026. For tax questions, confirm with SARS or your tax practitioner.